trephine
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of trephine
1620–30; spelling variant of trefine, originally trafine, blend of trapan (variant of trepan 1 ) and Latin phrase trēs fīnēs three ends (the inventor's explanation)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We aspirated all brain tissue inside the trephine.
From Nature ● Mar. 21, 2017
It is even probable that the trephine holes found in prehistoric skulls 50,000 years old were made for curative purposes.
From Time Magazine Archive
He excises the cornea with a circular saw called a trephine, whose diameter is a shade more than one-sixth of an inch.
From Time Magazine Archive
He has already applied the trephine to the cold-storage eye which an assistant holds by means of sterile gauze.
From Time Magazine Archive
A circular pulsating trephine opening was then to be felt beneath the flap, but no information was forthcoming as to the bullet.
From Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 Being Mainly a Clinical Study of the Nature and Effects of Injuries Produced by Bullets of Small Calibre by George Henry Makins
But with items such as a circa 1500 Austrian amputation saw and trephined Peruvian skulls from 4,000 years ago, upon which cranial surgery was performed, it’s aware of its yuck factor.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 11, 2018
Dr. Erich Kosterlitz had trephined the girl as a last effort to cure her of epilepsy.
From Time Magazine Archive
The patient was trephined by the surgeons of the German ambulance at Jacobsdal.
From Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 Being Mainly a Clinical Study of the Nature and Effects of Injuries Produced by Bullets of Small Calibre by George Henry Makins
The boy was trephined, and the comminuted fragments removed; in about six weeks recovery was nearly complete.
From Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by Walter L. (Walter Lytle) Pyle
The wound was dressed and trephined, and the results awaited.
From The Lost Art of Reading by Gerald Stanley Lee
The museum’s artist-in-residence program features forensic sculptor Kathleen Gallo, who has given faces to the ancients who endured trephining.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 5, 2021
Once the trephining of the skull was over . . . my mood underwent a change.
From Time Magazine Archive
"The operation of trephining the skull, which was widely and successfully practiced by primitive peoples in nearly all parts of the world, may be considered the highest achievement of prehistoric surgeons."
From Time Magazine Archive
Signs of increasing compression call for trephining and opening of the dura if this is necessary to admit of the clot being removed.
From Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. by Alexander Miles
The results have been highly satisfactory thus far and similar to those following the trephining operation, which operation I have performed in a number of cases during the past ten months.
From Glaucoma A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 by Willis O. Nance
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